Jon Stewart versus Gavin Schmidt

Obviously, there’s been lots of coverage on Climategate. Jon Stewart’s commentary on the Daily Show neatly rebutted spin by Gavin Schmidt on the “trick”, on the availability of “value added” data and closing with a sensible moral: don’t cut corners. It’s too bad that he wasn’t on the case with Upside Down Mann, where, at a certain point, the only reasonable discussion was satire.

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Folks may find this interesting. If you compare the raw CRU temp profiles against the AGW models (which is the right method to assess the models) you discover AGW cannot exist. What CRU has been doing is taking temp profiles that don’t show a hockey stick and adding in hockey stick, which magically matches those models that assume a hockey stick will show up in the Temp data. Climategate just proved AGW as a theory is wrong.

Interesting: the Univ. Copenhagan has this guidance regarding scientific fraud included in a presentation by the centre of philosophy of science and nature studies;

Scientific dishonesty is present when a researcher or research group by means of falsification, plagiarisation, non-disclosure or in some similarly gross fashion misleads people about scientific efforts or results of research, and includes:
Undeclared construction or fabrication of data or substitution with fictitious data.
Selective and surreptitious discarding of undesirable results.
Undeclared misleading use of statistical methods.
Undeclared misinterpretation of results and distortion of conclusions.
Plagiarisation of others’ results or publications.
Grossly misrepresented rendering of others’ results.
Inappropriate credit as author or misrepresentation of place of work.
Applications containing deliberately incorrect information.

Scientific dishonesty is present when a researcher or research group by means of falsification, plagiarisation, non-disclosure or in some similarly gross fashion misleads people about scientific efforts or results of research, and includes:
Undeclared construction or fabrication of data or substitution with fictitious data.

*Not the case here.

Selective and surreptitious discarding of undesirable results.

*Not the case here.

Undeclared misleading use of statistical methods.

*There is controversy over the so-called hockey stick, but on balance, the climate scientists seem to have a stronger case than McIntyre et al. And at any rate, even if we assume for the sake of the argument that Mann’s methodology is wrong, it is clearly not a case of fraud.

“The reconstruction produced by Dr. Mann and his colleagues was just one step in a long process of research, and it is not (as sometimes presented) a clinching argument for anthropogenic global warming, but rather one of many independent lines of research on global climate change.”)

Undeclared misinterpretation of results and distortion of conclusions.

*Not the case here.

Plagiarisation of others’ results or publications.

*Not the case here.

Grossly misrepresented rendering of others’ results.
Inappropriate credit as author or misrepresentation of place of work.

More comment from Hulme – he’s creating serious blue water between himself and the Team

“For too long we have conducted our arguments over different political visions of the future, forms of governance and ethical priorities using the science of climate change as a proxy. We need to free science to be what it is at best: an open, critical and non-partisan form of systematic inquiry into the physical world, open to the concerns, perspectives and insights of science’s most important stakeholder – the public. The quality of both political debate and scientific practice will benefit as a consequence, and the events of the last two weeks need not happen again.”

Heck, Gavin is taking on Gavin! In one of the recent posts at RealClimate, Gavin extols the fact that the science isn’t settled, that it will always be in flux. Yet when challenged to go ahead and write a formal statement as such (that the science isn’t settled, and any actions based upon the science to date should be done with the unsettled nature of the science firmly in mind) he flat-out refused.

Apparently it’s settled when he wants to be seen as the fine, upstanding independent scientist, but it’s concrete and locked when it comes to actions taken based on the results of that same unsettled science.

I am a nuclear safety scientist and have been reading alot of stuff on global warming ever since I read Chichton’s State of Fear. I graduated from Penn State in ’69 in Physics and am concerned about the reputation of my alma mater. I would like to know if Mann et al have provided a technical rebuttal to your analysis of the techical issues with his hockey stick work. I have read a lot of your stuff and it makes sense to me but I have not seen a credible rebuttal. From what I read about Climategate I am getting the impression that a scientific and reasoned rebuttal may be hard to find. Can you guide me to any?

But Stewart still apparently thinks AGW is real. His only satire is over some mis-conduct. He still calls those who disagree “deniers”, instead of agreeing that maybe we didn’t know as much as Al Gore says we know.

“Coming to light in recent days has been one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories of our time, bizarrely centred on a single tree in Siberia dubbed “the most influential tree in the world”. On this astonishing tale, it is no exaggeration to say, could hang in considerable part the future shape of our civilisation…”

It doesn’t help when the UK PM weighs in with phrases such as: “There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change .” – although delegating the “independent review” to a civil servant will probably ensure the desired outcome (like those Iraq inquiries) after a few years.

I know that this is a climate website, and not a weather website, but what is climate, after all, but weather over a period of time? One area of particular interest I have is Arctic Canada. After a normal October, a good portion of the area has had a very mild November, and early December. I am very worried about the arctic winter. I have paid less attention to Siberia, but I have seen that Moscow is well on its way to a second straight mild December. Anyone else worried?

EP wrote: “It doesn’t help when the UK PM weighs in with phrases such as: “There is an anti-science group, there is a flat Earth group, if I may say so, over the scientific evidence for climate change .”
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He’d be right, but he’s attacking a strawman that has been very artfully placed. The question is not whether climate change or global warming is happening. I think it is fairly clear, even given data problems, that some warming or “change” has taken place, the question is “What is the role of man in this change?”
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It is my belief that the majority of sceptics believe that climate is always changing and question the extent of the role of man, in particular the overwhelming emphasis on CO2 driven climate. This is a defensible position because the alarmist argument requires undetermined amounts of positive feedback, not to mention accurate data, to fuel their armageddon scenarios.
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However, alarmists, and people like Gordon Brown, would much rather redefine the sceptical argument as to being sceptical about climate change happening at all. This is a very poorly defensible position. The public as a whole have largely accepted that climate change/global warming is happening (even if they have been duped that natural variation doesn’t exist anymore) and if you attempt to argue otherwise, you will come across as anti-science etc etc and the alarmists will gleefully ad hom you into submission.
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The moral of this story is to always strictly define the argument into the categories of *man-made/anthropogenic* effects on climate compared to *natural* effects, if this is what you mean. You might well point out the last 10 years of no warming, but this should be done in the context of *natural* climate change opposing the predicted effects of *anthropogenic* climate change, not with the sloppy retort that climate change therefore “doesn’t exist”.
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You might balk at having to use the extra words, but you shouldn’t underestimate the power you offer your opponant by failing to properly define your argument.

I was wondering the same for quite a while and realized, that this is quite a question :)
On the proxi level, you can always argue which one is good enough for your analysis or not.
But there was this article, where Ross and Steve used Pseudo-Proxi in order to show that Mann’s Method mines data (Fig. 2 in http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf )
The only reply I found to that was something like this

Now as how to interpret this articles, I can only offer my opinion.
Both tests have a lot in common, they test the same (!?) method with pseudo-proxis (pp) and find hockeysticks. The difference is, that Mann’s PP contained hockeystick data + red noise, whereas Ross and Steve used data which contained only red noise.
Mann concludes from his tests, that the Algorithm works very good and the presence of noise does not change much for his data and therefore everything is fine.
I however don’t see how his tests would transfer to the data without any hockeystick in the data, where Ross and Steve could quite clearly show the data mining… but pehaps I missed something . . like you I would be very much interested in more information about this.
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All the best regards,
LoN

Actually the honor of calling sceptic scientists “flat eartheners” goes to…. who other than Al Bore.

He said in march 2008: “I think those people (sceptic scientists) are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view,” Gore continues. “They’re almost like the ones who still believe that the Moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.”

I made a mistake in my first comment here. “anthropomorphic global warming” is incorrect. I should have said “anthropogenic greenhouse effect”.
@DavePR: Great comment. When a rhetorically skilled person labels you as “climate change denier” you have to be extra careful to distinguish between global warming and the anthropogenic greenhouse effect.

cbmclean: I know that this is a climate website, and not a weather website

Actually, it’s neither. Most of the activity here concerns the analyses of data sets and statistical methodology that are used by proponents of anthropogenic global warming.

In other words, it concerns the “care and feeding of climatological data,” and the discoveries have mostly shown that the data has been starved, neglected, and mercilessly beaten to within an inch of its life.

Jeff Alberts, for me personally, no, mild is not good. I love the fact that there are parts of this world that are cold and icy. I would be sad if the tundra disappeared. I would be sad if the Greenland ice sheet melted.

For the human species, I’m not so sure. I have heard much about the dangers of climate change. It it was just a matter of the polar regions warming it would be one thing, but…

Yes, DaveJR, it is hard for anyone to argue that it has not warmed since the Little Ice Age(LIA) or the 1600s and 1700s. The more important issue is, as you point out, what part of warming is contributed by us homosapiens, anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

However, others should be clear that the key issue that arises from climategate is not whether there is or isn’t warming, but what is the quality of the science and the data and how does such quality or lack thereof affect our level of certainty regarding AGW.

The tundra has survived several warm periods since the last ice retreat some 10,000 years ago (polar bears too). The only difference this time is that humans have developed an advanced civilization that many “believe” is causing the warming. A “belief” is not evidence. Correlation is not evidence of causation.

I can’t say with certainty whether our civilization is contributing to climate in a meaningful way. Neither can you and the fact is that neither can any of the great minds of climate science either.

A plausible theory entered into a computer model is not evidence. Until evidence is presented that shows that this theory is better at explaining what we observe, then it is more reasonable to to attribute the recent warming to the same causes that resulted in previous warm periods.

I think the climatologists need an introductory task before laying claim to having a physical understanding of the earth’s temperature.

Take a simple, relatively static case with no atmosphere, like the moon. The challenge is to develop fundamental physical models to predict the moon’s temperature on the light and dark sides to within +-0.5C. If we can’t do that for a much simpler case, like the moon (and I don’t think anyone has), what makes anyone think that there is in fact a fundamental physical model for the earth that predicts within +-0.5C?

Like I keep saying, these are empirical models, and cannot validly be used to project outside the data space.

“Second, I would like to encourage a thought experiment. What climate research (at Met Offices) and what research and development (especially in the energy sector) would governments have funded if science had “predicted” global cooling, as had indeed been the fashion among climatologists in the 1970s?”

I think the above closing sentance admirably deals with the position when scientists and policy become entwined.

“UN officials likened the Climategate controversy to Watergate today, claiming that computer hackers who stole thousands of e-mails sent by a senior climate scientist were probably paid to do it by people intent on undermining the Copenhagen summit.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the theft from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit was not the work of amateur climate sceptics but a sophisticated and well-funded attempt to destroy public confidence in the science of manmade climate change…”

@Stacey: From an old CIA document from 1974 http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf about global cooling, it’s interesting to note that government also took it seriously and that concerns about the impact of global cooling was a reason to create and fund organisations like the NOAA Climate Prediction Center.

Steve I believe its imperative you strike while the iron is hot and find a way to make a documentary on the different issues covered by your blog. The left is furiously trying to paint the hacked e-mails as a smear campaign, but if you could step by step show your work, graphs, emails and the AGW’s responses (or rather non-responses) it would put the issue into perspective. I know this information in located on your blog, but it’s very ponderous to the vast majority of people with no interest in science or time to wade thru all the posts and comments. The film would make a great story with a good narrator and documentarian. If this is not put into perspective the average citizens won’t understand the level of deceit, I’m afraid the mainstream press (AGW cheerleaders) is going to whitewash it away and we will be soon back to “Hockey Stick” science as usual.

The importance of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) cannot be overstated. It is not just a conflict between supporters and opponents of the carbon trading notion. It is so critical to the political manoeuvring that some of the highest echelon ruling elite are being forced to show their hands in support of or opposition to the scheme.

I rarely agree with anything Rex Murphy has had to say in the past, this time he hit the nail squarely on the head. Thanks for posting that link.

Does Carbon Capture & Sequestering give anyone else the creeps? I never liked the idea, because anything buried deep underground will eventually seep into ground water. I didnt like industrial smoke being pounded into the ground, because I didnt think they’d separate the real toxins from the co2. (you know the so2, mercury, heavy metals, etc that can be found in a smoke stack) But I saw a BBC Horizon program the other day “Killer Lakes”, about lake Nyos in cameroon. Its in a volcanic region of Africa, and natural co2 filters into the lake. One night in 1986 something disrupted the lake, and the co2 was released from the water. 1700 people who lived near the lake died.

I can’t say with certainty whether our civilization is contributing to climate in a meaningful way. Neither can you and the fact is that neither can any of the great minds of climate science either.

I never claimed to be able to say that our civilization is contributing to climate in a meaningful way. I can only note that there are a large segments of the climatological community that does make that claim. However, being in general a skeptical person, I also refuse to say whether or not those authorities are trustworthy or not. A large part of this website is, well, “Auditing” those authorities, and those authorities haven’t always looked their best in these audits.

>chip
>Can someone clarify something. Stewart talks about the data ‘from the >1980s’ being lost, whereas Murphy says the data on which ‘all’ the models >are based has been lost.

>Which is it? All the raw data or just that from the 80s?

Chip, only the CRU data from the 80ies. The CRU data are just one part of an overwhelming amount of scientific data proving man made global warming. Even if you assume that the CRU findings aren’t true (for which , by the way, there is no evidence), all the other centers who have similar findings still prove global warming. Murphy says “all the data” has been lost. Well, he is lying – or just ignorant. Now, this should make you think carefully about this issue, when you’ve caught Murphy lying like that.. what does that tell you about his credibility?

I don’t find the amount overwhelming at all. Probably because I never see it mentioned outside of the habitual “overwhelming amount of some unspecified scientific data”. Btw, what does scientific mean in this sentence? Is some data scientific and some not?

Dear Gavin,
Do you agree with Oppenheimer’s remark in the CNN interview that “there was no deception”? Most everyone else seems to think there WAS some deception, using “tricks” to “hide the decline”. Most everyone else seems to think the email evidence is incriminating in this regard. I would welcome a discussion with you on the topic. TIA.

Dear Gavin,
Several years ago I invited you to dump Michael Mann in order to save the RealClimate brand. Now that that brand is ruined I implore you to jump ship and start your own blog focusing on the models. Although the RealClimate brand is in tatters it’s not too late for you and Pierrehumbert to start anew. Keep the modeling credible. Divorce yourselves now from paleoclimatology. Do it for the planet.

great post from Henry A.
was thinking along same lines myself.
it is important that some comprehensive record (taped or written) is kept.
the winning side do have a record of writing the history books – lets make sure we are on the winning (squash?) team.
as an irishman i am only too well aware of how history can be moulded.